Page 29 of Bloody Quarter

“I don’t know where she is. But I can tell you that she left this morning and hasn’t been back.”

Anger filled me first and then anxiousness. Did she take off? I didn’t think she would, but I’d make sure she regretted it if she did. I rubbed my lip, my brow pulling low as I thought.

“Thanks. That doesn’t make me feel any better, but thanks…sorry, what was your name?”

The man lit another cigarette and pushed away from the wall with a very distinct limp. “Name’s Rex.” He stepped up to my side and searched my face. I kept it as neutral as possible, but something told me he didn’t fully believe my story. There was a moment of hesitation, and I thought he was going to say something more, but he just limped off.

There was only one other place I thought she might’ve gone. I got in my car and left for the cemetery. Parking at the church, I jumped out and ran down the path that led to Alora’s sister’s tomb. No one was in front of the grave, but a glint of something caught my eye, and I jogged the rest of the way and kneeled. Picking up the empty vodka bottle, I swore and looked around. Shit. There was a picture, and when I picked it up, I saw two girls’ smiling faces. Flipping it over, a thread of panic gripped me when I saw the message scribbled on the back.

I’ll see you soon.

There was a trail of droplets leading from the stone. I touched one and sniffed it—alcohol and still fresh. Taking off at a run, I followed the intermittent drops all the way out of the cemetery. For someone who had just consumed twenty-four ounces of alcohol, she was still moving quickly. Where the hell was she going?

As I raced out onto the sidewalk, the drops became less, and they would disappear entirely as the bottle was emptied. What was out this way? I ran through everything I knew about Alora and her past. The only thing that came to me was the car accident that killed her sister. It happened outside of the city, but it was the only thing I could think of. She was moving way too fast to be walking, fucking runners. Was she planning on sprinting to her death?

Picking up speed, I ran along the sidewalk, thankful for the cover of night as I didn’t bother trying to remain hidden. The blare of a car horn caught my attention, and I spotted someone up ahead as they swerved back and forth between the lanes. It had to be her. Luckily, there were only a couple of cars at this hour, and they easily avoided her.

“Fuckers! Hit me,” she yelled, holding her bottle up in the air. “Fine, fuck all of you,” she slurred, and I knew exactly what she planned to do as she stopped running and turned at the mouth of Harrison Avenue Bridge. Like fucking hell you’re jumping.

I kept my eyes trained on Alora as she lifted the bottle and drank the rest down. With a scream, she threw it over the edge. The barriers slowed her down, but she was determined. Sprinting around the corner toward Alora, she was already straddling the concrete and inching her way toward the black fence.

I pushed faster as she swung her other leg over and gripped the edge. Standing on the other side, she began to shuffle sideways. She was going to try to make it to the middle from the outside. She looked my way, and it took a second for her eyes to register me.

“No, you can’t have me. I need to go,” she spit out and let go of the edge. With a final lunge, I reached out and wrapped my arm around her waist and clamped a hand over her mouth as I dragged her back. She squirmed and thrashed weakly, but as soon as she was back on my side of the barrier, I wrapped my arm around her throat and cut off her air supply. It didn’t take long before she passed out in my arms.

All I could hear was the loud thumping of my heart as I picked her up and started the walk back. “You don’t get to check out on me, Alora. If you want to die, I can arrange that, but I promise you’ll taste heaven before you walk with the dead.”

There was a large park nearby, and I walked in and sat down on a bench. To the outside world, we would look like two lovers out for a romantic evening or maybe two drug addicts looking to score. Either way, we blended. Pulling out my phone, I hit Lennox’s number.

He picked up on the third ring.

“Yo.”

“I need a ride. I’ll shoot you the address and bring my truck,” I said, hanging up before he could ask me why. Not that I thought he would give a shit, but I didn’t want to explain. I smoothed back the blue hair from her face and stared at my doll.

“I have big plans for us, Doll. Very big plans.”

Alora

Darkness. That was all there was. Maybe that was all there ever was. Or maybe my life was nothing more than a parallel universe of light and dark living on the same plain at the same time and neither recognizing one another for what they were. Maybe believing in God and Heaven had always been nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and every single moment we lived was our own heaven or hell.

My cellmate had told me that waking up each day and remembering why she was in prison was the same as going to hell. I’d never heard truer words. Not a day or night had passed that I didn’t think of Evie and Tammy and what I did to cause their deaths. What could I have done differently? Why was I the one who lived? Was that my punishment all along? Forced to live the rest of my life knowing that I was the cause of Evie’s death and my soul along with her?

Maybe, but I’d had all I could take, and I thought death was supposed to be peaceful. A place where your soul finally rested and the pain of the life you lived faded away, but if I was dead, then I didn’t land in heaven. All the painful memories were still front and center in my mind, and the ache of losing her was still sitting on my chest.

I blinked as I tried to remember what happened. I’d been prepared to die. I sat and cried and talked to Evie as I drank. Then I got up, ready to finally join my sister, except….

“Starting to come around? That’s good.”

Was it?

I shivered at the sound of Greyson’s voice. I would’ve known it anywhere, and it seemed fitting that I jumped to my death, and his was the first voice I heard. Maybe he was the devil all along. Following me from the shadows, lurking and waiting for his opportunity to strike, claim me, and drag me down to where I belonged.

Fear trickled along my body as I heard him come closer. I turned my head and picked out his shadow but couldn’t see his face. Swallowing, I gagged at the feeling of something up my nose and down my esophagus. What had he done to me? Jerking my arm up to grab whatever it was, my arm didn’t budge, and fear, along with bile, rose inside of me. Steadying my breathing, I swallowed hard to keep it down.

Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out.

“What have you done to me? Why can’t I move?”